Sometimes it pays to check out other (non-Blazers) parts of OregonLive.com. Case in point: movie critic Sean Levy's Mad About Movies blog informs today that October 24 through 29 the Clinton Street Theater in SE Portland will be showing the 1978 documentary "Fast Break," about the Blazers '77 championship team.

In celebration of the 40th year for the Portland Trailblazers, the Clinton Street Theater proudly presents "FAST BREAK", an ultra rare documentary about the 1977 Trailblazers - that has been out of circulation since 1978, when it played exclusively in Portland theaters for only one week

In “Fast Break,” director Don Zavin’s dreamy 1978 depiction of the off-court lives of the world champion Portland Trail Blazers, we are placed beside the players -- particularly Bill Walton -- as they socialize, travel, train and otherwise navigate a world that they aren’t entirely part of.

Pro athletes have always been different from the rest of us, but pro athletes of that more modest era were very different from today’s crop of multi-millionaires, and Walton, in particular, was markedly distinct from any athlete ever. Zavin takes us -- literally -- on a long-distance bike ride down the Oregon coast with Walton, sits by mountain streams discussing philosophies of life with him, travels with him to the Warm Springs reservation for a basketball clinic and a traditional tribal rite, and paints a picture of an earnest young searcher somewhat uncomfortable inside the skin of a sports champion.

Other Blazers fall under Zavin’s gaze; Maurice Lucas and Dave Twardzik, in particular, come off as multifaceted people, not just tall guys in uniforms. The loping, poetic style of the film, with trippy music from the jazz ensemble Oregon, imparts an air utterly distinct from the uptempo, hard-sell shape that contemporary sports documentaries inevitably take. “Fast Break” is in many ways a curiosity -- Zavin, who died in 1998 and left a warehouse full of films, is something of a mystery man -- but it is richly atmospheric and speaks vividly of a specific place and time.

For those thinking about making a Saturday night of it:

On Saturday, October 24th, Oregon author MATT LOVE will be in attendance on Saturday the 26th, to share excerpts from his book "Red Hot and Rolling: A Retrospection of the Portland Trailblazers 1976-77 Championship Season". Matt will also selling his book - which includes a DVD copy of FAST BREAK.